1. Technological Field
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of delivery of digital media data (e.g., text, video, and/or audio) over data delivery networks, such as an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) network, and/or the Internet; and specifically in one aspect to a multicast video program switching architecture.
2. Description of Related Technology
Local television networks comprise over 2,000 channels and there are an additional 1,188 Public, Education, and Governmental (PEG) Access Channels. These channels are rarely consumed but in some cases are mandated to be carried by networks.
As content providers move toward digital distribution of content, content distribution networks are deciding whether to handle PEG content to digital distribution which may require the expenditure and operation of a large number of digital video hardware (e.g., encoders) for providing these rarely (and sometimes never) watched channels. By some estimates, total view time of PEG channels is 0.0004% of the total view time. During operation, even when not being viewed, the encoders processing these services are consuming power, cooling, and bandwidth in a datacenter.
Solutions exist that require the management of individual encoders and publishing points on origins for each service. This content is being consumed from digital content management apparatus, such as Digital Content Managers (DCM) by Cisco®, and published to origins in an always-on fashion that makes management complex due to the volume of content. Unfortunately, the ability to monitor the current state of the vast number of local and PEG channels is diminished and therefore if an issue arises it is likely customer-facing and would be corrected only when a customer calls to report the issue.
Based on the foregoing, it is clear that while prior art solutions have generally recognized the benefits of digital video distribution, various limitations, including bandwidth, power, licensing, cooling, and technical limitations, pose a great expense for these distribution networks to distribute this rarely consumed content. Solutions would ideally be encoder agnostic, use standardized hardware/software/operating systems, and be able to be implemented quickly with low development and resource overhead.